A program to form constructive strategies for higher school learners' psychological support preparing for the final state certification

The final state certification requires both education quality and personal resources of higher school students. The training in constructive psychological defense for the final state certification provides students with an opportunity to understand difficult, disturbing situations and the ways to solve them. It also contributes to the creation of a positive background and helps to fix educational and personal tasks on progress. The purpose of the program is to form constructive strategies for psychological defense in higher school students. The program is divided into three modules: theoretical, diagnostic and formative. The theoretical module aims to form ideas about the psychological defense of an individual as an active, conscious process aimed at preserving the integrity of the individual and realizing his/her potential. The forms are lectures and talks on the following topics (4 hours): psychological protection: the purpose, types, functions; the use of psychological protection in stressful situations; features and manifestations of psychological defense; methods and strategies of behavior in stress. The diagnostic module is a specially organized self-knowledge process aimed to identify students' personal fears, their characteristics, and to deepen and clarify their self-concept (4 hours). The results of the self-assessment of students' emotional states during the examination session were obtained using the questionnaire “Self-assessment of emotional states” by A. Wessmann and D. Ricks. After the diagnostic examination, the students obtained the results, which indicated general tendencies of personal development, recommendations concerning the choice of constructive behavior strategies. The formation module included training sessions aimed at building constructive psychological defense, consolidating and developing skills of self-regulation and constructive social interaction, etc. (1-2 hours three times a week for one month).